Marathon: Lessons Learned

Finishing a marathon was finishing a long journey that began more than four months before I crossed the starting line. I began with a training plan that put me on the road five times a week: one long run, two speed training sessions, two recovery runs (oh, and one day of cross training). Within a couple months, I pushed my body farther in my long runs than I ever had before. The speed sessions reminded me of what it felt like to run in high school. While I felt great about my accomplishments along the way, I was often sore and trying to figure out what was normal and what was one step away from an injury. I still don't have all the answers, but along the way, I learned a few things...

Listen to Your Body

An risk averse doctor might tell me to take it easy for a week see if the unusual pain goes away. The problem is that marathon training will likely bring a lot of unusual pains--it's part of the progressive increase in mileage. Separating the nuisance pains from the ones that could keep me from the big day was a real challenge. I ended up with a couple general rules: If the pain warms away during the run, don't worry. If the pain gets worse during the run, think twice about what's going on. Soreness following any run is okay, but anything that causes painful limping is not.

These rules worked well for me and I only hit one serious injury related obstacle. More to come on that. Outside of these general rules, I noticed at one point that I was starting to feel tired in the hours following my runs rather than energized. I wasn't sleeping as well, which isn't normally a problem for me. I lacked enthusiasm. I realized that I was suffering the effects of overtraining and adjusted my schedule accordingly. A week or so later, I got back on the good foot and felt better during and after my runs.

Same is Good, Change is Bad

Early on, I had shoes I loved...and they loved me. I was lucky enough to have two pairs. I had the same good fortune with a pair of socks. After a few months of training, I decided to treat myself to a new pair of shoes and socks. They were fancy and utterly too expensive. But you only run your first marathon first, right? Well, for me, almost not. I thought I was smart in working these shoes into my plan by lacing them up only for shorter runs and keeping my trusty shoes for the longer runs. On one of the shorter runs, I noticed a pain on the outside of my right foot. The pain went away, but came back with avengence on my long run. The pain didn't go away and left me with a painful limp. Danger! This pain I took seriously. After I recovered, I resumed running with my trusty shoes only and all was well. Lesson: If you have shoes that work, STICK WITH THEM.

That said, I lost three weeks of my hardest training (I did manage to compensate somewhat by crosstraining), which I think really hurt me in keeping up my pace during the final miles of the marathon. I had then endurance, but not the stamina.

Lay the Groundwork

My official training plan started a little over four months before marathon day. I was running before that, but not all that regularly and without much focus. If I had a better base, I'm sure that my legs would have better handled the upswing in the mileage and intensity once training began in earnest. I'd need to do some research as to what a pre-training plan would look like, but I think 15-20 miles per week (at least) with some, but not too much, speed training would probably do the trick. A healthy dose of some fun cross training (biking, hiking, and backpacking) wouldn't hurt.